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We need a new definition of success—one that harmonizes meaning and money.
Imagine diving into your workday with renewed energy, leaving behind the exhaustion or dread of a monotonous grind.
Traditional beliefs about success and the root cause of burnout are the same:
Prove yourself.
Work harder.
Take care of the business, and it will take care of you.
We’re recycling the mindset and practices that keep us stuck. Our souls need a jumpstart into The Age of Humanity.
Tune in for a new way of working that honors our nervous system and the bottom line, using knowledge of the brain, the Bible, and business. We’ll discuss timeless truths that amplify growth, ignite change, and reshape the world of work. No corporate speak or business BS. Let’s get to the heart of a rewarding career and profitable growth.
We speak human about business.
What’s in it for You?
Value, Relevance, and Impact (VRI): No, it's not a new tech gadget—it's your ticket to making your work genuinely matter to you and your company.
Human-Centric Insights: We prioritize people over profits without sacrificing the bottom line. Think less "cog in the machine" and more "humans helping humans."
I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hesson, your thrive guide leading you into the new Age of Humanity. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of business and life, from achieving over $40 million in sales, teaching thousands of people around the world about leadership, trust, execution, and productivity to facing burnout, divorce, raising a couple of great humans (one with ADHD), and navigating the uncertainty of starting a business.
I’m committed to igniting change in the world by jumpstarting business into profitable growth with the timeless truths of our humanity.
Sound crazy? It’s only crazy until it works.
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Want insight and advice on your real career and business challenges? Connect with me on social media or email me at rebecca@wethrive.live. Your story could spark our next conversation.
[00:00:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I wanna go higher, higher, higher. Welcome back to the Business is Human Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, and we're here to bring you episodes that blend a meaningful work with profitable success here to steward what I call the age of humanity.
[00:00:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I believe if we transform the way we work, we can transform the way that we live. As always, my friendly request. If you like what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any episode. And leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it too. Always looking to help you and connect with others.
[00:00:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Alright, let's get into it, shall we? Well, it's that time of the year, it's the holidays. And if you're like my daughter, you've had your. House decorated since November 1st. It does seem to be getting earlier and earlier every year, but you know what Joy is in season anytime in my, in my opinion. I'm in the middle of writing a book right now, so I am analyzing every word that I type and say right now.
[00:01:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So this could be interesting. I know from my own personal experience as well as. The world around us that the holiday season is a kaleidoscope of emotions and no matter what you are planning to do on any given day through the holiday season, there is an elevated sense of emotion about it, whether it's.
[00:01:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Feeling overwhelmed and busy just in your day to day. 'cause your shopping list is always spinning, whether it's the gathering that's coming up that you're anticipating, whether it's the financial challenges that may come with it, pretty much every single day between now and January 2nd, have an elevated emotion attached to it.
[00:02:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I want to share with you some science and some Bible as we do here now, anticipation. So your nervous system is constantly responding from a cellular perspective and. We can be shook up. Remember the snow globe example that I always use, that we are a big ball of cells and it's much like a snow globe that's getting shook up and when the snow globe is shook up and everything is spinning around, some good things, maybe not so good things, just excited or.
[00:02:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Stressed or whatever it is, what's inside the snow globe, can't see out and what's outside can't see in. So we don't get clarity, we don't get connection. We get dysregulation. The holidays is dysregulating, both in exciting ways. Think about if you have kids or when you were a kid, Christmas morning. The anticipation, the excitement.
[00:03:18] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: People are just screaming and hollering and excited. That's your nervous system being activated with excitement. Yours may be activated with looking at the budget and looking at the schedule, and it still makes connection really difficult when we are activated. And so one of the main things that we can do throughout this season is adhered to a daily stillness practice.
[00:03:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Adhere to micro moments of regulation and stillness throughout the day. More than ever, we need to actively and proactively do the things that keep us regulated. Now, one of the first challenges with this is you're going to try to talk yourself out of it, saying you don't have time for it. Because of all the additional tasks and activities that come during the holiday season, you're going to, that's where the first thing that's gonna go out the window, the time in prayer, the time in meditation, the time in stillness, the time for breath.
[00:04:29] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You're gonna try and fill that with tasks and lists and decorating and shopping. That is going to cause you to be even more challenged with your connections, which last time I checked the holidays were supposed to be about connections. So no judgment, no shame here. Just awareness. 'cause I've lived this same life too, but I've learned some things and I've changed some things that have had significant impact and I, I, I just, I want you to know them too, and I want you to.
[00:05:02] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Embody them so that you can stay in connection during this holiday season. So don't give up your morning walk your prayer time, your meditation, your whatever it is that keeps you regulated before and during the day. Please, for the love of everything, holy, keep those going. Okay, so. Our brain is a prediction machine.
[00:05:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's constantly using patterns to anticipate what's coming up next. So, you know, one of the primary jobs of our brain is prediction. It's to constantly scan the environment and assess what's about to happen. Am I safe? And as it does that, it is using the past to predict the future. It's the foundation of what's called temporal integration.
[00:06:07] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's when both sides of the brain are figuring out how to work. Together. So the limbic system, the amygdala and the hippocampus stores emotional memories and sensory cues. I mean, and the holidays are full of sensory cues, smells, laughter, holiday music, and those sensor, the smell of cookies, baking or whatever those can trigger.
[00:06:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Old emotional states that are attached to memories, good or bad. And so before you even arrive at a gathering or engage in a holiday activity, your nervous system is already activating the same state that you state of your nervous system that you experienced last year. When you were nine years old, somewhere back in the past, so you're not imagining it, your body remembers it.
[00:07:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so if you are anticipating a holiday gathering that historically has not been ideal for whatever reason. You start to feel some kind of way about it before you even get there because your body remembers it. And so, you know, and that's how God designed us for safety. It's a gift really. But when the past is painful, then that safety pattern can entrap us.
[00:07:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: To experiencing the same shitty gathering you over here. And so this temporal integration integration is how the brain links the past, the present, and your hopes and dreams for the future together into one continuous story. It's how we listen to music as music and not just hear the notes because our brain took the individual notes and like.
[00:08:23] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Put it all together into this emotional experience, into this story called a song. And so the prefrontal cortex helps us hold awareness of the now while we're integrating what has happened in the past and, and what's coming. And so it's, it's like trying to put all that together. Now, this also. Because it hasn't happened yet.
[00:08:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The gathering this year hasn't happened yet. Gives us the power of choice. We can update the story of what's going to happen in real time. We can start updating it now in terms of expecting something different, and we can do it in real time while we're at the gathering. So when we enter this holiday gathering.
[00:09:21] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And we hold space for awareness. We're not just already saying, yeah, that's gonna suck and this is gonna happen, and they're gonna say this and I'm gonna get mad. Don't already rehearse what you don't want to happen. Instead, we can hold space for compassion and how we respond to things and create a new pattern.
[00:09:50] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Than the one that we had in the past. Now, it doesn't mean that we're gonna change other people's behavior. Your uncle probably still gonna be drunk. Your mom's still gonna say something inappropriate. Your aunt's still like people still gonna be people, but you are going to decide to disrupt the pattern by how you feel and how you engage with this gathering.
[00:10:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay. I, I, I'm, I'm, I already feel people rolling their eyes. Like, I don't think, you know, my family, listen, I don't think you know my family, but I'm gonna honor them by not sharing those stories here on the podcast. Although it could be really a, a fun one. Super interesting. So this temporal integration, this past, present, future, getting wrapped up together.
[00:10:46] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Is how that designed us so that we can have redemption in the moment. We can break the pattern to redeem it so we don't have to keep living it. So he gives us this nervous system to scan for safety, but also to learn peace and to learn how to replace some of the old patterns with. Peaceful once, because remember all of our, when I say remember, like, oh, I'm sure you listen to every one of my episodes and have them all stored in your memory, that'd be delightful.
[00:11:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay? All of our thoughts come from love or fear, and so every nervous system state can be traced back to those as core. Drivers, the driver of love providing safety and connection, or the driver of fear that's trying to protect us and control things around us. Now, love activates the ventral vagal system, which gives us social engagement, eye contact tone, facial expression.
[00:12:02] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's love, has a different energetic frequency than fear. Fear activates the sympathetic fight or flight part of our nervous system or dorsal collapse just to shut down. And you may have said, you know what? I'm just not going
[00:12:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: with me for a minute. Maybe, maybe there's a new opportunity here, but whichever energy you bring into the room is contagious. Again, it doesn't mean that people still gonna, people's patterns and behaviors. It's not gonna be that your energy is gonna change the way your cousin votes. It's not gonna be that your energy changes, that your family doesn't care that you eat healthy and they don't.
[00:12:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Your energy isn't about changing other people's behavior specifically. It's about changing the energy and the atmosphere of the gathering. Okay, this is real. Here's how I know it's real. This past summer I decided. In my summer, big family reunion that has, historically, it's been bad. It's just not had a lot of joy, has a lot of fried chicken and a lot of creamy pies and cakes, but it didn't have a lot of joy.
[00:13:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And because of that, people would just come in, bring their regular food that they always bring, which is always, you know, delicious from my childhood. And then that we'd sit. For a very short period of time because there wasn't enough joy in there. So people just like eat and leave and they'd sit with their same little groups of their or their core family and nobody was really interacting.
[00:13:55] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And it was like, I drive an hour to get there, y'all. I don't wanna drive an hour and then eat fried chicken for 45 minutes and drive an hour home. So I decided after studying a lot of this, I was gonna bring the light of the world into my family reunion. Whatever it took, no matter what anybody else said or did, it wasn't gonna knock me off of knowing that the Lord loves me and ask me to come in and be the light of the world.
[00:14:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I was gonna do it at my family reunion. Now, this is important because I don't have a hard time bringing the light of the world into a keynote speech or into my coaching, or into any other aspect of my life. I'm annoyingly positive. I'm aware it's who I'm what. What's different is at my family reunion, I still have all of these past situations and ways that I've interacted with family members and their energy.
[00:15:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Like all of that comes with me into the family reunion, more so than it does to the stage for a keynote or into a coaching conversation. This was different for me to bring the, the, the light of the world into my family reunion meant that I was going to need to manage that energy proactively. And so I did.
[00:15:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And all the way there, I got. Pregame pumped up for it. I was playing praising worship music. I was praising the Lord. I was thankful that I was healthy and happy and had good kids, and my car's great and I was gonna get there. And I had money for gas and I couldn't wait to see family members because, you know, no matter how crazy they are, they're still your family and they're still, you know, God loves them too.
[00:15:54] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That was the other thing I, I made the conscious decision to remember that no matter how they act, how they vote, how they, anything, which I don't care how people vote, but I know that's a big source of contention in people's families. I, I decided to remind myself that God loves every single one of them as much as he loves me.
[00:16:17] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now, that'll shift some perspective for you. Chew on that one for about the next. 40 days. Oh, 40 days. There's some biblical reference. Uh, didn't he for that pop up There we are. That was a huge shift, not gonna lie, that just like came outta my mouth while I was like praising and singing and I was like, oh.
[00:16:40] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So I felt like the Holy Spirit was like, oh yeah, and don't forget this one. Okay. And so I go into the event and you know, I just start. Asking people how they are, having good conversations, getting my food, and being genuinely, genuinely lovingly interested in what was going on in their lives. I didn't go in with the, uh, this is gonna like, mm, expectations of the, how it's been in the past, even though that's the reality of how it's been in the past.
[00:17:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I went in with love. I went in. I was meeting these people for the first time and just with curiosity and all of the sense of light of the world that I could bring, and I'd have some conversations with one group and then I'd go over and have some conversations with another group and at one point. We're having this conversation and I start asking questions about stories for my family, things that I had no idea.
[00:17:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It was fascinating when you start really genuinely being curious and interested, the stories that people tell. And what I was really mindful about, cautiously mindful about is when someone would tell a story not to judge it. That's not what it was about. The judgment is the Lord's anyway, that's not my job.
[00:18:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm lying to the world. That's what I was doing. And so they would tell a story and I'd be like, that's fascinating. And make what happened. And I genuinely was interested. I wasn't faking it. 'cause people could tell that too. Right. But it was really interesting and I was, and like things I learned about my family that I had no idea.
[00:18:28] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. It was really fun. And then we're laughing and then people on the other side of the room were like, what's going on over there? Like then they started laughing and then they started having different conversation. It was fun. It was fun. And you know what? I looked at my watch when we were all kind of finally getting ready to go.
[00:18:54] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: We had been there for three hours, lovingly it. It was amazing. So I leave the next day. My mom sends me a screenshot of a message that one of my older cousins had sent to her about how much fun she had at the reunion and making a note about me being delightful or something I don't remember, but noticing.
[00:19:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now listen, I'm gonna tell you, nobody's ever sent a message to me or my mom or anybody about me in a family, and this was, this was new. This was new. I'm not saying that 'cause I want credit for it other than the fact that I'm encouraging you that you can bring the light of the world to this what has traditionally been kind of a shit show.
[00:19:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And then I find out that my cousins who always host this party, this reunion, and it's a lot of work to get their like place ready for it. It's a lot of people that said, you know what, we're not sure we wanna keep doing this. 'cause people just come, they don't stay very long. I don't know if it's, you know, we're getting older.
[00:20:03] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I don't know if it's worth it. They said it was so much fun. They agreed to have it for next year, which I didn't know going into it, but the Lord did, and that just makes my heart happy that now that I see them differently, that maybe we've got a chance of whipping this thing up into something far better than it's been in the past few years.
[00:20:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The Bible says that perfect love drives out fear, and so we don't have to wait for other people to get more loving. We don't have to wait for other people to be different, for us to bring that love. 'cause God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love and a sound mind. So what I'm saying is go into your family gathering with love and a sound mind regulated nervous system, all kinds of love, because the pattern predicting machine that is our brain.
[00:21:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Means that fear is just gonna predict more fear, but love can create the safety. And so when we choose love over fear, we don't just change our experience, we literally change the frequency and the energy in the room. How cool is that? So co-regulation, when we get regulated. Means that our nervous systems start to sink up.
[00:21:35] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So when we come in with our tone and our facial expression and our micro movements and calm breath emitting love, others will pick up on it. Now, if you walk in with a scowl on your face and a anticipating that it's gonna suck, that's what you're gonna spread. If that's the case, maybe you should just stay home.
[00:22:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm just saying. So you are energetically contagious, and that doesn't just mean from a high energy. People are contagious. All energy is contagious. So if you wanna bring a calming atmosphere to this gathering, be calm. Whatever you bring is what radiates. And if you bring love. It's gonna overpower all the others, and so bring enough love just to wash it around the room.
[00:22:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Let it all ripple into the crevices, the corners. Again, you can't control other people's opinions, but you can impact the emotional environment of your holiday holiday gathering when you are grounded. Your calm becomes a signal of safety to everyone else. You are the light of the world. So this year I'm suggesting that instead of trying to win the conversation, instead aim to carry the atmosphere.
[00:23:23] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Of light and love and a little bit of heaven into the room because every breath activates your vagus nerve, your your super high way of peace. And so do some, you know, five breaths in, hold it for one, and then six long breaths out. Do that as your pregame instead of maybe filling up your Yeti with something that you think is gonna numb it out.
[00:23:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Not saying that, that I've ever done that, but I've read about people who have. I don't do it anymore because what I found was the more I did that, trying to numb it out just did not bring the energy that I wanted it to, and then I'm more aggravated. So it just didn't work. It didn't work. Also, gratitude increases serotonin and dopamine, reinforcing the calm connection.
[00:24:18] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So like I did. The more that you can feel all sense of gratitude for something about this gathering and people that are gonna be there, or the holiday spirit, or how you wanna model who and what to be for your children. That's another big part of it, is if you have the fear, Yik, I don't wanna go to this thing, and you're speaking that you've already created the pattern of expectation for your family, your kids.
[00:24:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is a bummer. So we don't really wanna pass that on before they've even had a chance to experience it for themselves. So this, this presence of calm and peace and gratitude regulates around safety for you and others. So decide how you wanna pregame this holiday gathering with some prayer, with some breath work, and then during while you're there.
[00:25:18] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Listen more than you speak. Be curious. Just, just know that everybody is kind of doing the best they can. And sometimes that doesn't look like you'd like for it to look, but you're probably not gonna change these people's behavior with your judgment or your advice. So let that be a place that you are just curious and ask questions that are.
[00:25:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Interesting about stories from your past and then afterwards reflect on it. How did it go? How did it feel to bring your peace into the room? Because I bet there's other places that this could be helpful in the way that you bring your energy into the room. So I'm gonna give you a couple of reflection questions.
[00:26:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: What past holiday memory does your body still anticipate? Good, bad, joy, fear. Just being aware of it allows you to then decide how you want to interrupt the pattern because you do have the power to do that. Question number two, how might you. Renew your mind to see this year as a new story, not changing other people's behavior, just interacting differently.
[00:26:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And number three, what would it look like to show up as the light instead of reacting to the noise? I love that one. So you were designed to be a carrier of peace. We may not always use those capabilities as much as we could. You are designed that way. You already have everything that you need to do it.
[00:27:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And the same God who built your nervous system to protect you also built it to restore you. So when you choose love over fear, you partner with heaven to rewrite not just your story, but what if you were a catalyst for right. Rewriting the family story. This holiday. Just be the light. All right. Love you mean it.
[00:27:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. Thanks for being here. You can follow us on Instagram. Business Is Human or TikTok. Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. It's a great way to share some of the clips with your colleagues and friends. All right, make it a great day. Love you mean it.